It's been nice working here

It's nearly 11 am on Labor Day and I've eaten a waffle, loaded the dishwasher, started a load of laundry and read seven blogs. Now it's time to get down to business and post something. I'm sure Mrs. Coach is lying on her living room floor, curled up in the fetal position due to my lack of posting and for that I apologize, my friend. Let me make it up to you by taking you to the Elk's Lodge next weekend. Wear your pink dress.

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Last Monday I got to finally start teaching the Kindergarten class that had been left in my care. The first seven days had been spent controlling the crowd and crying, so imagine my delight at routine and schedule. You know the OCD in me requires it. Anyway, the morning had gone well and at lunch time I checked my phone to find two new voicemails and two missed calls from a number I didn't recognize. I listened to them, discovering my oldest daughter's voice telling me her coach had pulled her out of gym because her ankle was swollen and hurting and could she have some Motrin. I immediately called the school to tell the secretary that yes, Motrin was fine and had she seen the ankle and was it bad? She said, yeah, it looked bad.

Now, let me tattle on myself right here, right now: Abby twisted her ankle at church camp. Yes, the camp of churching that was held IN JUNE. She twisted it pretty bad and it swelled up like a poisoned pup, so we iced it, elevated it and heck, it was the day before we left camp, so I didn't take her to the nurse. It eventually got better and I kind of....you know....forgot about it.

After talking to the school secretary I called the PA's office to glean some advice because advice is all I wanted because it was just a swollen ankle, right? Wrong. I asked the nurse what I needed to do - elevate? heat? cold? Her answer: Make an appointment because it sounds broken. I made an appointment for early the next morning in hopes that my mom could take her, then called my mom to see if she could take her. Thankfully, she could.

I dropped Ab off at Mom's the next morning before school, with a note giving my mom permission to oversee the visit and any x-rays that might be needed. I called her at 10 on my first break to get the scoop. He had x-rayed it, manipulated it, poked on it, asked a boatload of questions and after seeing the x-ray declared it to be possibly broken, but he wanted the radiologist to look it over before he declared it so. He couldn't tell if he was seeing the growth plate or a fracture. He wrapped her ankle, wrote her a note to stay out of school the rest of day(partly to elevate the foot, partly because she was so upset she had given herself a raging case of diarrhea, bless her heart) and to stay out of PE until further notice, then said he'd call our house and leave a message after the radiologist gave the word, probably on Thursday.

I spent the rest of the day kicking myself in the gut for having let my daughter walk around on a possibly broken foot for oh, let's see....TWO MONTHS. I am going to have to build a display case for all of my Mother of the Year awards.

Turns out, the phone call on Thursday informed me that Abby only had a severe sprain. Never though I'd be relieved to hear she'd only severely sprained her foot. She sprained it at camp and then re-sprained it doing the stair climber in gym. She has to keep it wrapped until it quits hurting and keep it wrapped in gym forever, as far as I'm concerned. The coach has already given her a hard time over it (and not in a good-natured kind of way) and she had to stand her ground and respectfully tell him to call her daddy if he didn't believe her. Funny, he quit bugging her. Daddies rock.

So to recap - send my Mother of the Year award to my home address, please. Thank you very much.

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Turns out, I didn't loathe Kindergarten as much when the classroom size was down to a more manageable number and I could actually, you know, teach them things. I still didn't like it, but it got to where I didn't cry every day, so that was progress.

There are three little boys in that class that are what I would consider out-of-the-ordinary behavior problems. Two of those boys hate each other guts, which only adds to the problem what with the biting and the gut-punching they inflict upon each other. Cousin Courtney is going to take that class over, get through to those three boys and manage just fine because she has a gift, a blessing, a desire to teach Kindergarten, but to me they were boils on my backside. The longer I was in the room the more I figured out about them and if I had like, ya know, training and education and whatnot, I could've handled them better, but most of the time I just ignored the minor stuff and didn't react until they threatened harm to themselves or others. Hey, give me a break before you judge me.

And I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God loves me because the worst one was absent on Friday. I at least ended the week without raising my voice, crying or sending someone to the office.

In a nutshell - I'm glad it's over.

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Friday night we went to TotTwo's first football game.

Man, I'm glad my boy plays basketball. I'm a nervous wreck the entire time my nephew is out there getting dogpiled.

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Saturday night the kids and I went to a family reunion with Mom and Pops. It's Pops' kids' family, so I pretty much knew Mom, Pops, my sister, my stepsisters and one aunt. But it was a nice, relaxing break. Sunday was a continuation of the reunion and Paul went with us this time. When we got home we all had to strip in the foyer, throw our tick-infested clothes directly into the washer and then de-bug our bodies. Apparently, our son is a tick magnet - we found more on him than anyone. Bleh. One is too many to find on any body.

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I am so glad that y'all hung around during these two weeks of no posting and dead air space. Y'all are the most understanding readers ever. Thanks. Again.

Tater's main squeeze is out of town for the next week and she SWEARS we're going to "yakketyblog" as she calls it. I won't hold my breath and neither should you because she's promised yakketyblogging with me before and it's never come to fruition. BUT if it happens, won't we all be pleasantly surprised.

Paul says I'm going to be a lady of leisure now that I'm staying at home again, but he obviously forgets that two month old babies require a lot of rocking and snuggling. Kiki is in the house once more. Huzzah.